Buffs Ninth At Pac-12 After Rain-Soaked, Suspended Second Round

EUGENE, Ore. — The University of Colorado women's golf team slipped one spot into ninth place at the 2022 Pac-12 Championship during a second round marred by a lengthy weather today and eventually suspended due to darkness at the Eugene Country Club on Tuesday.
 
Colorado shot 9-over, 297, in the second round and sits at 23-over, 599, heading into Wednesday's final round. The Buffaloes were one of six teams to complete the second round. Constant rain and wet conditions led to a 5-hour, 13-minute delay which left five teams – a total of 15 golfers - unable to finish due to darkness.
 
Play was suspended due to weather at 11:17 a.m. MT, a little over an hour into Colorado's round. The Buffaloes, who used the lengthy delay to catch up on school work, were still in eighth place at the time, at 16-over. Freshman Natalie Vo, Colorado's first golfer to tee off was able to get four holes in before the delay. Sophomore Hailey Schalk, the last Buffalo to tee off was able to only play one – a par at the par 4 No. 10.
 
Nine groups across five teams had yet to tee off at that point, eventually starting their rounds at 4:30 p.m. MT. Second-round play is scheduled to resume at 8 a.m. MT on Wednesday for those teams still on the course, with third round action tentatively slated to begin at 10 a.m. MT with a shotgun start.
 
Colorado was five strokes better than its first round, but the field as a whole was better on Tuesday despite the conditions. No. 2 Oregon had the best round of either day with a 3-under, 285, to grab a share of the lead with No. 7 Arizona State at 4-over, 580, heading into the final round. No. 47 Washington is one stroke back at 5-over for the tournament.
 
No. 1 Stanford, the leader after the first round was one of the five teams unable to complete the second round. The Cardinal fell back to fourth at 8-over, with three players needing to finish six holes.
 
Oregon's Hsin-Yu Lu shot a 6-under, 66, to open up a four-stroke lead over Washington's Stefanie Deng and Arizona State's Alessandra Fanali heading into the final round. USC's Amari Avery and Stanford's Rose Zhang are tied for fourth at 1-under; both with three holes to complete their second round.
 
Schalk remains in striking distance of the Top 5 after shooting a 2-over, 74. She had pars on her first five holes before dropping a stroke at No. 15, only to immediately gain it back with a birdie at the 474-yard par 5, No. 16. Schalk wasn't able to improve on that though; two bogeys on the front left her tied for 12th at 3-over for the championship, just one stroke out of eighth and four out of fifth.
 
Vo had Colorado's best round of the day, with a 1-over, 73, improving from her first-round total by a whopping 13 strokes. She began with a double-bogey at 10, but picked up a stroke with a birdie at No. 13 just before the weather delay. Vo, in 53rd overall at 15-over, returned to shoot even after play resumed, including a birdie on her final hole, the 368-yard, par 4 No. 9.
 
Diane Baillieux and Ellie Gower both shot 3-over, 75, in the second round. Baillieux recovered nicely from a bad start. She was 4-over through three holes when the delay hit, but promptly birdied three of the next five after the pause to get back to 1-over. Baillieux is tied for 45th overall at 9-over.
 
Gower played her first seven holes after the delay at 1-under, thanks to a birdie at No. 15. She played the front at 2-over, logging three birdies along the way and is tied for 35th overall at 7-over.
 
Malak Bouraeda shot 4-over, 76, in the second round. Bouraeda had a tough stretch, going 3-over on the final four holes at the turn, but played even on the final nine and is tied for 35th at 7-over for the championship.
 
"A long day, but we handled it well," CU head coach Anne Kelly said. "The start of our round was really tough, pouring rain. A coach or maintenance person had to squeegee every green before they could putt. We finished the round though, many did not. Nice comeback by Natalie today and Diane played well after a very bad start. Overall a decent day with the exception of a few doubles and triples."
 

 
*Completed second round scores are official, incomplete rounds are not.